Building a history

Additional reporting by Jayson Whitehead and Scott Weaver

WARNING: The things you are about to see may baffle you.

With a few exceptions, these are the places that you didn’t expect anyone to care about, or at least not anyone in Charlottesville.

But Charlottesville isn’t Disney’s Thomas Jefferson Land. We have some buildings that reflect architectural styles that don’t rely on red brick and white trim—Art Deco and International and Big Box and Greek Revival-cum-Who-Knows-What, in the case of the former Church of Christ on Commerce Street. And we have some buildings that do include the columns and brick but alter the look to fit different decades.

These days, city officials want to preserve some of Charlottesville’s less celebrated past, a decision spurred in no small measure by the loss of the Compton House (or The Beta House or The Anchorage or whatever else you want to call the building that once stood at 124 Maury Ave.—as the people who inhabit a building change, so does the building’s name).

The parable of the Compton House, in a nutshell: When the Thomas Jefferson Scholars Foundation asked the city and county to approve an $18 million tax-reduced bond for a new graduate student center on the site, no councilor or supervisor thought to ask the nonprofit, devoted to giving merit-based scholarships to UVA students, what it planned to do with the old building. But when the Jeff Scholars asked for more money for their project, City Council asked and the Jeff Scholars equivocated. Bottom line: The Jeff Scholars decided they’d raise the additional $3 million on their own and the Compton House, built in 1913 and designed by one of Charlottesville’s most prominent architects, Eugene Bradbury, was torn down at the end of December.

So on January 7, City Council voted to move forward with, among other preservation efforts, its first comprehensive historical designation of individual properties in 15 years. The city’s preservation planner, Mary Joy Scala, is now set to figure out, with the Board of Architectural Review (BAR), how to create that list.

“I don’t think you need to save every house that’s 75 years old,” says Scala. “Some of them have been altered, some of them don’t have the integrity they once did, some of them maybe didn’t have much integrity to begin with, they just happen to be that old.” To determine whether a property should be historic, the city has a list of criteria, which includes factors such as how intact the building is or whether famous people lived there. “Age is just one of them,” Scala says.

What does it mean if the city considers a property “historic”? The city, either through staff or the BAR, will have to approve additions, renovations and especially demolitions. Charlottesville’s BAR has earned a reputation for being particularly tough on building owners wanting to alter design-controlled property, which means many property owners aren’t going to be enthused by seeing their addresses on the list.

To add local design control, owner consent is not absolutely necessary—it’s legally like a rezoning—but any Council decision must involve public hearings and meetings by the BAR and the city Planning Commission, as well as Council.

“You’re going to have a whole lot of people coming out,” Scala predicts.

Here are 12 of the 100 or so properties on Scala’s preliminary list. Not all, or even most, of them will make the cut, but figuring out why some locals think they’re worth keeping underscores how we resemble Jefferson after all: rooted to the past while recognizing that the world belongs to the living.

Kmart

1901 Hydraulic Rd.
Built: 1961
Owner: Peyton Association Partnership

“People always think I’m insane when I say this is a historic Kmart,” says Christine Madrid French, a historian and the president of the Recent Past Preservation Network, a national organization that advocates for preserving buildings younger than 50 years. She suggested a number of newer, more modern buildings on the list. While Madrid French is noncommittal on the actual architecture of the building (“It’s basically just a huge box”), she is effusive about its place in local history.

“My preliminary research on that Kmart shows that it was constructed in 1961-1962, which would make it one of the first 18 Kmarts in the country,” Madrid French says. “It initiated this northern movement up 29. This is when Downtown started dying in the ’50s. It initiated this cycle of development where you started building new and building out on the undeveloped properties.

“I wouldn’t necessarily advocate for the preservation of Kmart. In something like that where it’s a highly commercial property that most people don’t recognize as historic, I would advise documentation, which is always what I advised for the Terrace Theater [which was torn down late last year]. Make a record, and at least have that available.”

Fry’s Spring Service Station

2115 Jefferson Park Ave.
Built: 1932
Owner: Ruby B. Houchens

Business must be good at the Fry’s Spring Service Station—the place is always packed with cars ready to be serviced, and it’s at one of the most prominent locations on the southwestern side of town. But preservationists are afraid that should business be not as good—if the Houchens who own the place decide to sell—the place could be in danger.

The property is one of the most highly recommended on Scala’s list, with nominations from Madrid French, Helana Devereux, Eugenia Bibb and former BAR member Preston Coiner. It’s listed in a number of books, including The Architecture of Jefferson Country by K. Edward Lay, published in 2000. “Even the exposed light bulbs form part of the modillion decoration,” writes Lay.

“It’s tied into the whole idea at that time of gas stations becoming more luxurious, because they wanted to attract patrons,” says Scala, who notes the blue tile in the ladies’ room. “The design of it is almost taken from a pattern book—there’s one in Belmont that’s really similar. But the most unusual thing about it is the Jeffersonian architecture, [which shows] it was adapted so that it would fit into this town. Again, it’s really, really intact. You can tell what it looked like when it was first built.

“Right where it’s located, it’s very threatened. To me, it should be zoned commercial [instead of residential] and they could use it for a restaurant for example, and have a nice café. The way that intersection is situated, the biggest threat may be from the roads. I’m really worried about that.”

Wachovia Bank

1117 Emmet St., Barracks Road Shopping Center
Built: 1967
Owner: Federal Realty Investment Trust

Dennis Kucinich could be forgiven for thinking he saw another UFO if he drove by this building on his recent trip to town, but Scala urges you to look a little closer. “I just think it’s an incredibly beautiful building, when you go by there at night and look at it,” says Scala. “It just seems like a perfect design. It evokes the idea of Monticello or the Rotunda without actually copying it.”

Madrid French agrees that it should be preserved. “I’ve never seen a bank like that before. It’s intended to fit in but doesn’t pretend it’s of another century,” French says. She thinks the entire shopping center is historic, from the early design McDonald’s to the Colonial Revival gas station near the Burger King. “So when I go by Barracks Road, I see many decades of architecture, all of which represent very significant periods of time and all important to Charlottesville’s history.”

A spokesperson for Federal Realty Investment Trust couldn’t be reached for comment on the bank’s future, but in the past, Scala has talked to an employee who no longer works there. “He just talked about it like it was a disposable property,” and was surprised to find that others thought it historic. “That made me think that you really can’t depend on people thinking the same way about buildings.”

Office for Martha Jefferson Hospital

507 Locust Ave.
Built: 1900
Owner: Martha Jefferson Hospital

This old home has hit the century mark, but its future could depend on its next owner, unless the city acts to preserve it. Martha Jefferson Hospital is relocating to Pantops by 2011, and it’s banking on the sale of its old city quarters to help finance the move. The neighborhood association wants the houses that are currently owned and used by the hospital returned to residential use, but Martha Jefferson can’t give them a guarantee. Even if these houses don’t stay on the list of individual properties, many neighbors are hoping that City Council will approve a local conservation district that would protect everything within it—another way to keep the houses from being demolished.

Former Coca-Cola Bottling Works

134 10th St. NW
Built: 1920
Owner: Bill Chapman

This isn’t the only former Coca-Cola bottling works on the list, but this one spares the Art Deco detailing of the younger one on Preston Avenue, and it’s remarkably intact. “It’s mostly the simple, industrial style of architecture that today looks like a really nice modern building,” says Scala. “It has nice proportions, and it’s a brick building. Any brick building in Charlottesville is going to get a couple of points from me, because that’s what we’re about.”

The property, some of which has been converted into apartments, is classified as being most in danger. “Who owns a building is really important, because some people care about them and some don’t,” says Scala. “You go through the Fifeville list of owners, and you get a bunch of properties owned by the same LLC, it makes you nervous. UVA has been buying up stuff [around this] location. I thought UVA was going to stay on the southside, but they haven’t.”

Chapman, who owns C-VILLE’s parent company, says for his part, “I haven’t heard anything from the city, so I’m not sure what the ramifications of a local historical designation are. But generally I’m a fan of historic preservation.”

Virginia Aberdeen-Angus Association

909 Landonia Cir.
Built: 1952
Owner: Hilltop Day Care Center, Inc.

Nestled on a ridge facing the 250 Bypass between a car wash and modest single family homes is this building constructed for the Virginia Aberdeen-Angus Association and now a daycare. It’s easy to dismiss at first glance, but a closer look reveals a surprising charm in the brickwork and the steeply pitched roof.

What really helps make this building a candidate for preservation is its architect, Milton Grigg. A UVA grad and local architect active from the 1930s to the 1950s, Grigg had among his credits the restoration of Monticello (1936) and the Albemarle County Courthouse (1938), in addition to designing what is now the Federal Executive Institute, which is tucked away off Emmet Street near the 250 Bypass. He also designed a bunch of houses on Hessian Road. “His residential work had a very personal touch that produced a lower, more intimate scale,” says Lay in The Architecture of Jefferson Country.

910 King St.

Built: 1900
Owner: Charles Newlen and Frances Bibb

“I’ve always liked this house, and I felt like my opinion of it was confirmed because Eugenia [Bibbs] recommended it out of the blue,” says Scala. “It is unusual having that entry like that, really unusual.”

“It’s an old house, I know that,” says Newlen, who says he’s lived there 72 years. He thinks it might be a good idea to designate it historic. “It’s a good built house. I know they knocked a lot of them down around here. I reckon if the University wanted to come after it, they could knock this house down.”

Fifeville, close to both the UVA Hospital and Downtown, is one area of the city most under siege by development. At the January 7 Council meeting, Scala presented a list of 14 permits for demolition of older houses, many of them owned by one landowner, Richard Hewitt, who recently won Planning Commission approval for a nine-story building just two streets over from this house. Newlen says that Hewitt, and a half dozen others, expressed interest in buying his house.

Bethel Institutional Baptist Church

501 Commerce St.
Built: 1922
Owner: Johnson, Trustees

“Intact” definitely isn’t exactly the right word for this building. Earlier in its history, it was a daycare—that’s what Starr Hill neighborhood resident Pat Edwards remembers it as, because she went there. Most recently, it was used for the Church of Christ and God congregation, which was displaced when their church on Fifth Street burned down.

“I think I’m glad that church is on that list,” Edwards says. “It probably has the potential for somebody to look at as an extension of some huge apartment they want to put somewhere.”

“It’s a funny little block,” Scala says. “It doesn’t look like much when you first go there, but the neighborhood really takes pride in it. People overlook places like that. It’s important to protect areas like that, I think.”

“The building is old—it’s been here all of my life,” says Teresa Price, a Starr Hill neighbor. “It’s been tampered with so many times. It could be historic. It’s not a real concern of mine.”

“I know we’re endangered,” says Edwards. “I can look out my window at the top of the hill and see what somebody approved to be built at the top of the hill,” referring to the new Cream Street Condo building. “They were smoking something when they approved it.”

Monticello Dairy Building

Built: 1937
Owner: J. Richmond Trust; H&W Ld Tr II

The home to McGrady’s Irish Pub and Mamma Mia Italian restaurant resembles a run-down industrial building with a Jeffersonian facade, but the former Monticello Dairy Building has won enough admiration from Preston Coiner, Gate Pratt, Helana Devereux and Eugenia Bibb for them all to suggest it for preservation. It was designed by Elmer Burruss, who trained as an architect through correspondence courses and who also co-designed what is now the addition to the Albemarle County Courthouse.

“It looks like things have been moving in and out of there, and it makes you wonder what the future of the building is,” says Scala. The property manager didn’t have a comment about its preservation.

135 Bollingwood Rd.

Built: 1933-1935
Owner: Jeff Dreyfus and Robert Headrick

If you drive by one of Charlottesville’s only “International”-style houses, chances are you didn’t notice it, shrouded as it is behind foliage and a tall wooden fence on Bollingwood Road. But the house at 135, designed by Philadelphia architect Kenneth Day, is “not only the first Modern house in the county but a very early one in America’s Modern movement,” writes Lay in The Architecture of Jefferson Country.

Fittingly, it’s owned these days by Jeff Dreyfus, whose architecture firm, Bushman Dreyfus, designed one of Downtown’s most prominent Modern structures, the Live Arts building. The house, Dreyfus says, is “very unlike anything in this region,” citing its flat roof and steel windows, among other things. “We love the cleanness, aesthetic and simplicity.”

But that doesn’t mean he wants it to be boxed in by local design control. Dreyfus says previous owners initiated registration with the state Department of Historic Resources, but when Dreyfus purchased the property in 2002, he didn’t follow through so that he could add a terrace and a swimming pool.

 “We would choose not to do [historic designation],” Dreyfus says, just in case he wants to do more renovations. As an architect, he has gone before the BAR for clients and is familiar with the process. “I’m not sure what the benefits would be. …We don’t see any advantage for ourselves or the house.”

Clark School

1000 Belmont Ave.
Built: 1930
Owner: City School Board

Schools aren’t the most likely candidates for demolition, though the plight of the Jefferson School shows how close that can come through deferred maintenance and neglect. Once a centerpiece of the Vinegar Hill community, that originally all-black school almost saw the wrecking ball this decade, and only through a firm base of community support has it managed to stave off that possibility and become added to the National Register of Historic Places (though the renovation process has been very slow going).

So Clark School, which continues to function as an elementary school, was suggested for the list of locally protected properties, along with the Jefferson School, which is not protected from demolition by its national designation.

“It’s probably under more threat from bad renovations or alterations rather than anything else,” says Scala. Indeed, Clark has had renovations and additions throughout the years. “Right now it’s under design revue because of its entrance corridor, but not demolition revue. It’s a particularly nice older school.”

Richmond Camera

1214 E. High St.
Built: 1939-1940
Owner: Ted Bullard, owner of Richmond Camera

When I called Richmond Camera’s headquarters in Richmond to try and speak to the owner, Ted Bullard, the receptionist was shocked to hear that anyone thought the building historic. (Bullard didn’t return my call.) It’s doubtful that many other drivers zooming between Downtown and Free Bridge think so either, with its peeling paint and boxy look. A large part of what makes it special, however, is that it’s one of only a handful of Art Deco properties in Charlottesville.

The modern twist of its heyday during the Roaring ‘20s, Art Deco, with its decorative geometrical shapes, made scant appearance in Charlottesville. The biggest building still around in the style is the Coca-Cola Bottling Works on Preston Avenue, but a couple of gas stations also got the Deco treatment: the buildings that are now Mono Loco and Richmond Camera, both probably built by the same company. Mono Loco is part of the Downtown district and is protected, but Richmond Camera is not, and Scala thinks it’s in a particularly vulnerable position.

“The Planning Commission is always saying they want that area [along E. High Street] to develop, that it’s underutilized,” Scala says. “We’d better identify any building we want to save now.”

“It’s important to recognize that Charlottesville is not just Jefferson and not just UVA,” says Madrid French. “Charlottesville has a context that goes all the way to today.

“The smaller buildings like that are important to keep an eye on, because that’d be similar to the Beta House. You think it’s pretty safe, someone has an idea, and boom, it’s gone. We’ve had this conversation enough times that these buildings should be recognized and protected.”

Correction, January 22, 2008:

This article has been amended. It originally stated incorrectly that Jeff Dreyfus designed the Live Arts building and that Bill Chapman converted the former Coca Cola Bottling Works building into apartments.